Business-friendly GOP organizers who launched a new crop of super PACs to counter the tea party have failed to cash in, recent campaign disclosures show, leaving them badly outraised on both the right and the left.

Close to a dozen super PACs backed by the GOPs business wing, including those with ties to Republican leaders on Capitol Hill, pulled in just under $10 million in 2013. Thats less than half the $21 million collected by a handful of tea party and anti-tax groups, including the Senate Conservatives Fund and the Club for Growth.

Its also less than a third of the $31.3 million collected last year by the top four Democrat-friendly super PACs, including those backing House and Senate candidates. The Main Street Republicans low super PAC receipts reflect donor burnout, big moneys migration into unreported channels and continued strife over who defines the GOP.

While Im happy with where we are, I think we can do better, said former Ohio Rep. Steven C. LaTourette, whose Defending Main Street super PAC raised $845,000 last year, more than half of it from labor unions. And I will be disappointed if we are not able to turn it on by the end of March.

LaTourette cited donors preference for giving to his groups 501(c)(4) nonprofit arm, known as Main Street Advocacy, which is exempt from disclosure rules and raised $1.1 million last year. He also blamed disenchantment among GOP contributors, who poured millions into unrestricted super PACs in 2012 with unimpressive results.

Were caught up in some of the same stuff that I think all of [the] Republican organizations are feeling, LaTourette said. There was a great deal of deflation after the 2012 election.

GOP consultant and blogger Crystal Wright has had such trouble raising money for her Conservative Melting Pot PAC, which she launched a year ago to help diversify the Republican candidate pool, that shes considering closing up shop. Her super PAC collected just $4,112, and Wright said her fundraising pitches often drew angry emails complaining about the government shutdown and inaction on Capitol Hill.

Theres a state of confusion, I think, Wright said. Theres no clear sign of leadership coming from the face of the Republican Party. Who are we? What do we really stand for, and what are we fighting for? And when you go out to get dollars, it makes it challenging because theres more frustration associated with our brand than enthusiasm.

Republicans for Immigration Reform, a super PAC launched by some of the same organizers who ran the top Mitt Romney super PAC in 2012, has raised just $307,545. The group takes credit for helping spur recent GOP immigration action, but has done little advertising. Two super PACs with ties to House GOP leaders, the Congressional Leadership Fund and the YG Action Fund, have raised $1.3 million between them. A super PAC and policy website launched by GOP consultant and commentator Alex Castellanos, NewRepublican.org, has raised less than $60,000.

If Donahue and the Chamber of Commerce think their fund-raising was a bust, just wait until their candidates get wiped out in the primaries. There aren’t enough millionaire voters to win an election, dip wads.

“Even at the deep-pocketed GOP super PAC American Crossroads, founded by Republican operative Karl Rove, receipts totaled only $3.6 million last year  five times less than the $18.4 million the group had collected at this point in the 2012 cycle. The super PAC and its tax-exempt arm, Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies, along with a new spinoff super PAC dubbed the Conservative Victory Project, collectively raised $6.1 million in 2013, Politico reported.

Still, thats a far cry from the $300 million that the Crossroads operation shelled out in 2012. And the Conservative Victory Project, which drew both buzz and controversy when Rove pledged after the 2012 elections that the new super PAC would jump into Senate primaries, has essentially gone dormant, with $178 in cash on hand.

Crossroads spokesman Jonathan Collegio said in a statement that this years Senate races present great opportunities for Republicans, that pledges are on track with previous cycles, and that the group is increasingly enthusiastic about the prospects of winning the Senate and holding the House.

Some big American Crossroads donors have flocked to Kentuckians for Strong Leadership, a super PAC set up to back Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who faces both a primary challenge from conservative Matt Bevin and a strong Democratic opponent in Alison Lundergan Grimes. It raised $2.4 million last year, ranking it among the top GOP-friendly super PACs in this election.

Other GOP super PACs focused on individual races include the West Main Street Values PAC, which has raised $130,000 to defend Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., from primary challenges on the right, and Mississippi Conservatives, a super PAC that launched this year and has already spent $219,500 opposing Chris McDaniel, a conservative state senator challenging Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss.

Most importantly, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which doled out $35.6 million in the 2012 elections, has spent close to $1 million on the midterms. That includes $200,000 to defend McConnell and $140,000 to support Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, who also faces a conservative primary challenger. The chamber will reportedly spend up to $50 million in the midterms; a chamber spokeswoman declined to discuss spending or strategy.

Some business leaders say they are shifting their focus from high-dollar ads to more effective local and grass-roots organizing. When Liz Cheney abandoned her bid to unseat Sen. Michael B. Enzi, the National Retail Federation took some credit for having mobilized Wyoming business leaders behind Enzi.

What we showed in Wyoming is that the right way to do this is to make sure that real people are engaged, said David French, the federations vice president for government relations. I think orchestrating efforts from Washington is going to be really ineffective, because it continues to feed the establishment-versus-insurgent narrative that the insurgents want to feed.

Even so, GOP business allies are up against conservative organizers who collected more than $20 million between them last year. That includes $9.4 million for the Senate Conservatives Fund and its affiliated super PAC, $6.4 million for the Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund, $2.6 million for Club for Growth Action, and $2.3 million for the Madison Project.”

From the bottom, what is happening with liberal Team Romney to augment their previous Romney-installed gay marriage, statism and RomneyCARE/ObamaCARE impositions:

" Republicans for Immigration Reform, a super PAC launched by some of the same organizers who ran the top Mitt Romney super PAC in 2012, has raised just $307,545. The group takes credit for helping spur recent GOP immigration action, but has done little advertising."

The Tea Party is growing exponentionally thanks to the likes of our inept and corrupt administration. Have the WH Islamists not figured that Americans are comprised of the most resolute types of people that came here to escape exactly what they are trying to impose on them? We have the most stubborn and patriotic people in the world here in this melting pot. What they are trying to do goes against the very essence of Man and it will fail because of it. You’d have to be an idiot not to see it.

Hello?
“Business” isn’t really BUSINESS ANYMORE!
No widgets being produced—nor have they been-in a loooong long time. It’s all out of Chinkna and screw the American worker out of another job (those that aren’t taken by the Illegal Aliens, of course.)
All these guys are Dhimmocrats now.

9
posted on 02/06/2014 4:31:54 AM PST
by Flintlock
( islam is a LIE, mohammed was a CRIMINAL, shira is POISON.)

That will come as a bit of a shock to all the people I work with who make computer chips in Tempe and Chandler, AZ. I shake my head in amazement every time I hear someone lament the US doesn't manufacture anything....

10
posted on 02/06/2014 4:40:41 AM PST
by Cyber Liberty
(H.L. Mencken: "The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.")

And lets not forget business using their friends in DC to help regulate the little guys right out of existence with regulations a large corporation can afford but are too much for a small business.

One example from here within Michigan is the smoking ban in bars. Casinos lobbied for it but have a loophole for themselves by virtue of the fact that they have the required 10,000 square feet that can be set aside as a smoking area.

11
posted on 02/06/2014 4:42:00 AM PST
by cripplecreek
(REMEMBER THE RIVER RAISIN!)

As conservatives, we have been repeatedly instructed to suck it up and vote for the party in the end, even as RINO's continue abandon our candidates when they survive primaries. We have read recent tales of former republican senators Warner and Lugar supporting current Virginia DEMOCRAT senator Warner in his reelect bid, and newbie senate candidate Nunn (DEMOCRAT) in Georgia.

None of these RINOs is supportive of conservatism. They will work on behalf of statism to assist democrats to stifle even their own party's candidate, if they aren't liberal enough. They don't realize yet that conservatives are satisfied to avoid voting for liberal republicans - that's why they have been losing.

Yes, like the patent on Freon expiring and the manufacturer lobbying for ban in favor of it’s patented replacement, and GE lobbying for a ban on cheap, open source light bulbs in favor of a higher margin, mercury laden proprietary replacement.

One of the issues my congressman has been talking about is OSHA and the new regulations they have imposed on true small family farms in recent years.

I recently visited a dairy farm I worked on as a teenager and was amazed at the amount of regulation that has been imposed over the last 30 years. I had to get a visitor badge with a magnetic strip that gave me limited access to various areas of the farm. The owner said it was all due to regulations and insurance costs. His is a fairly large dairy farm and he says he knows plenty of little guys who simply sold their equipment and leased out or sold their land.

Gone are the days when I could show up unannounced at 4AM get some raw milk to feed calves to pay for my hunting privileges and off I would go. The farmer said there was no hunting for employees or friends anymore because of the liabilities involved.

14
posted on 02/06/2014 5:39:04 AM PST
by cripplecreek
(REMEMBER THE RIVER RAISIN!)

What we are seeing here are some of the foolish ones at work. They can’t seem to get it through their heads that they need to sell the customers what the customers *want*, not what the businessmen *think* they *should* want.

They want the cheapest possible labor pool, no matter where or how they get it. If it is through outsourcing, fine; if it is from “semi-legal” illegal aliens, this is also good.

They are caught up in the idea of fungibility. They see any labor as good labor, any customers as good customers, and tragically, any nation as good as any other, as long as taxes are low and they have political clout.

But their real stupidity comes with the belief that their customers respect and want what they do.

So now they have created super-PACs, and stupidly assume that conservatives will give them money, because conservatives are opposed to Democrats. At the same time, they are willing to work with Democrats, as long as they think they get something out of the deal.

Penny wise and pound foolish.

Conservatives have finally realized that having traitors on your side is more destructive than having a determined opposition. So the die is cast, conservatives must strip these foolish men of their political power, and back bench them, if not purge them entirely from the Republican party.

Their ideas have been tried and failed several times. And unlike Democrats, conservatives *do* have pattern recognition. We have finally learned that Bushes, Doles, and McCains, though beloved by the RINO leadership and the CoC, are losers and failures.

I did not renew my membership to the local Chamber of Commerce. When they called to try to conserve my membership I told the lady who called that I was not renewing because the Nation Chamber of Commerce was supporting amnesty. She didn’t know what to say.

16
posted on 02/06/2014 6:41:00 AM PST
by BubbaBobTX
("The problem with socialism is you eventually run out of other peoples money." Margaret Thatcher)

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